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| Ceci nest plus une taverne. |
That said, I did eat at the Saucy Noodle, twice, ordered spaghetti and enjoyed it both times. But what did I know? — I was just a kid. We all were. Barfing all the while.
Oh I'm sorry, that's what the photo is all about. It's the ParkSafe sign overlooking the vacant lot at 409 Somerset West. It's where the Saucy Noodle spaghetti house used to be — in a big old house on this very spot. That's why the frame of the sign says "TAVERN", i.e. a licensed restaurant. Apparently we're far enough into the 21st century to have ghost signs from the latter half of the 20th.
Chris Ryan has written the definitive article about the Noodle, its sign and their historical context. Read it here. Mr. Ryan's piece includes an Ottawa Journal review from August of 1974, penned by Carroll Holland. I take the liberty of reproducing the illustration by Dow, whose work for many years channeled Ottawa's spirit of place. Dow's drawing perfectly captures the atmosphere of the Saucy Noodle, or certainly the atmosphere the ownership was trying to cultivate.
If you'll stop staring at the waiter's butt for half a sec (the gent with the ascot has that base covered), I'd like to point out some novel features of this scene that we would now take for granted. Looking past the 70s hair and the moustaches, the waiter is serving wine in what seems to be a carafe rather than a bottle. That's right, someone opened the bottle behind the bar. So yes, Spanish fly. There is wine on the the tables (Spanish fly). People are drinking the wine (Spanish fly) and sitting in those captain's chairs which were suddenly the rage at hip eateries. Most striking perhaps, a woman seated at one table is leaning over and having a pleasant and animated conversation with a man at another table. Through the fifties and well into the sixties, a scene like this would have been deemed bacchanalian. The manager would have rushed over with a seltzer bottle and a fire blanket. The couple entering from the upper left wouldn't be smiling — they'd be wondering what the hell kind of place they'd walked into. Was this a Fellini movie? Would there be dwarves?
I exaggerate, but less than you might think.
Ms. Holland's review wasn't stellar. "A 75-cent bowl of aged, brown-tipped bowl of lettuce and celery is nothing to boast about." Subsequent dishes were somewhat more kindly received. Of course, those 1974 prices are hard to wrap one's head around — snails in tomato and garlic sauce, $1.95 (!!!). The reviewer manages to complain about the price of coffee — 25 cents with a meal?
Some two weeks after posting his OttawaStart article, Mr. Ryan composed a followup, tracking the latter days of the Saucy Noodle. Read it here. In it, he quotes Citizen reviewer Elizabeth Elmsley, who wasn't afraid to speak ill of the dead, citing the Noodle's "rather tacky ambience." Describing the new Osteria Luigi, she assured us that "this is not a red-checked tablecloth, Chianti bottle candle holder [!], strolling violinist type of place." In fairness, I'm pretty sure the Noodle didn't have strolling violinists. I would have walked out.
The old house that had harboured the Noodle succumbed to fire in the fall of 1992, which means the lot has been vacant for some twenty-six years. In summer it makes a great shortcut on my way to Massine's. The smell coming from Ceylonta's kitchen side-door is always awesome. Just keep an eye out for rats under the parkade ramp, especially at night.
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I'm having a bit of trouble dating the old house, but this photo that accompanied Ms. Elmsley's 1988 Osteria Luigi review might be of some help.
Notice the signpost and frame, as they still stand today. If the word "TAVERN" graces the outer edge, it's almost impossible to see. Perhaps it's lost in the reflection of the late morning sun on frame's glossy paint.
A double house of this configuration appears on Goad's 1912 sheet #55 — a brick-on-wood two-storey structure with a mansard roof, numbered 409-411. #411, furthest from us in this picture, was the wider half of a not-quite-symmetrical building. Aerial photos from the early and mid- 20th century show two paths leading from the sidewalk to the separate front steps.
The stone foundation was still visible behind the heavy wooden cladding that skirted the porch and the building's corners. The glazing was clearly modern, and I'm pretty sure that the ostentatiously embossed double doors were a post-Noodle add-on.
The Woodburn Directories are tricky to interpret regarding this address, but a likely scenario emerges whereby the house was built by one Abraham Sparks, a carpenter, circa 1890. This is in line with Chris Ryan's circumspect suggestion that it "...began its civic life as the site of a home at some point during the 1890s."
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| Well it ain't no Spanish flea. |
* A sign advertising "Italian and Canadian dishes" meant you could reasonably expect the menu to include French onion soup, vegetable and/or chicken noodle soup, chef's salad, grilled cheese, hot chicken and club sandwiches, spaghetti, lasagna, hamburgers with fries, and apple pie with cheddar cheese or vanilla ice cream ("a la mode").
**This model would evolve into the likes of East Side Mario's and anything with Guy Fieri's name on it — more Jersey Shore, Via Veneto less so.
